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21.42 A woman paints her palm with water colors during an event for passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

LaiSengSin/AP

21.19 A US defense official says the Navy ship that has been helping search for the missing Malaysian airliner is dropping out of the hunt.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision has not been officially announced, said it was determined that long-range naval aircraft are a more efficient means of looking for the plane or its debris, now that the search area has broadened. Navy P-3 and P-8 surveillance aircraft are still involved in the search.

But the official said the USS Kidd, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer that has been searching in the Indian Ocean, will leave the area and return to its normal duties. It is part of the Navy's 7th Fleet.

19.46 Officials have revealed a new timeline suggesting the final voice transmission from the cockpit of the missing Malaysian plane may have occurred before any of its communications systems were disabled, adding more uncertainty about who aboard might have been to blame.

Malaysian Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said an initial investigation indicated that the last words heard from the plane by ground controllers - "All right, good night" - were spoken by the co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid. Had it been a voice other than that of Fariq or the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, it would have clearest indication yet of something amiss in the cockpit before the flight went off-course.

Malaysian officials said earlier that those words came after one of the jetliner's data communications systems - the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System - had been switched off, suggesting the voice from the cockpit may have been trying to deceive ground controllers.

However, Amhad said that while the last data transmission from ACARS - which gives plane performance and maintenance information - came before that, it was still unclear at what point the system was switched off, making any implications of the timing murkier.

19.35 Some in North Waziristan are looking at whoever is behind the missing MH370 plane with green eyes.

18.34 Anwar Ibrahim is the leader of Malaysia's opposition coalition. As William J Dobson writes in Slate:

A fanatical supporter of Anwar Ibrahim does sound scary—as long as you know nothing about him.

Anwar is the 66-year old opposition leader who is the principal thorn in the side of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) that has ruled Malaysia for 56 years. Anwar heads a coalition of parties, which includes his own multiethnic party, that has made the greatest inroads against the country’s corrupt masters. In 2008, the opposition won more than a third of the seats in parliament—the first time that UMNO lost its supermajority that allowed it to change the constitution at the prime minister’s whim. Anwar, who had been a political prisoner for six years, most of it in solitary confinement, won his seat in a landslide, and the opposition won five of the country’s 13 state governments. Last year, his opposition party claimed to have won the election against the ruling party, a contest that many say was marred by widespread fraud. Anwar supported the massive protests that followed the ruling party’s supposed victory, but he never called for a toppling of the government.

Anwar Ibrahim

18.20Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia's opposition leader, has stated he saw the pilot at party meetings but did not know him personally. It has been claimed by some news organisations that Captain Zaharie Shah was an "obsessive", "fanatical" supporter of Mr Anwar and could have hijacked MH370 in anger and protest at Mr Anwar's conviction for sodomy the day before the flight.

I don't recollect the name, but when the photographs were shown I remembered I had seen him at party meetings.

He doesn't hold positions in the party, but is an active member in the sense that he has been seen with the party's parliamentary leaders, taking photographs with them.

Mr Anwar added that Chinese criticism of Malaysia's handling of the crisis was "absolutely justified":

In this case, they lost their patience and came out with a stinging statement against the Malaysian government's lack of transparency.

It is absolutely understandable for the Chinese to express anger and even disgust.

Feeling angry is absolutely justified, especially with so many of its nationals on board.

18.09 Could the pilot have been trying to navigate to Langkawi after a fire on board knocked out the transponder and secondary radar tracking? Could this theory, put forward by a chap called Chris Goodfellow on Google Plus, be a rational explanation for Flight MH370?

The left turn is the key here. This was a very experienced senior Captain with 18,000 hours. Maybe some of the younger pilots interviewed on CNN didn't pick up on this left turn. We old pilots were always drilled to always know the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us and airports ahead of us. Always in our head. Always. Because if something happens you don't want to be thinking what are you going to do - you already know what you are going to do. Instinctively when I saw that left turn with a direct heading I knew he was heading for an airport. Actually he was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi a 13,000 foot strip with an approach over water at night with no obstacles. He did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000 foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a shorter distance.

17.51 The missing Flight MH370 lacks satisfactory facts and has sparked endless theories, but everyone is still obsessed. Michael Wolff of the Guardian says the story is the new anti-journalism:

Well, the plane is somewhere. Although there exists the eerie possibility that it will remain as if nowhere – forever lost.

And that’s just about the best situation that exists for journalism: “missing” stories trump all others for their intensity and stickiness, fueling the imagination of journalists and audiences alike.

Journalism exists to provide information. But what’s really compelling is a lack of information – or what is more particularly being called “an absence of empirical data”.

And on it goes. I have never known anything like it. Think of the agony of those poor relatives. They are not only enduring the disappearance of 239 passengers and crew aboard the Malaysian airliner. They must also put up with the continuing pain of not knowing.

... It is not just the biggest whodunnit we have ever seen. It is a whydunnit and indeed a whodunwhat. This is a world in which we thought that they could see everything: whether through CCTV or looking at your internet account or tracking your movements by the signal of your mobile phone. Now we learn that it is still a world so vast that an object as unmistakeable as a Boeing 777 – 200ft long, 200ft broad and six storeys high – can vanish into the wide blue yonder.

An unidentified girl holds a paper plane with best wishes for the missing Malaysia Airline, MH370 at the "wall of hope" as it enters the ninth day of the missing Malaysia Airline, MH370 at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

17.05 Could MH370 have landed safely? The Telegraph's Rob Crilly states that while facts about what has happened to the Malaysia Airlines flight are in short supply, theories are not:

Could the airliner have landed somewhere, was it hijacked by remote control or did one of the pilots use the Boeing 777 as part of a one-man political protest or suicide?

Each one sounds outlandish but the truth – whenever it finally comes to light – could be equally strange.

Investigators seem increasingly certain it was flown off course by someone with expert knowledge of Boeing 777 planes.

Satellite data indicate it could have travelled in two possible directions, either to the south across the Indian Ocean or to the north, perhaps as far as Kazakhstan.

After that comes speculation, not helped by confusing and contradictory accounts given by official bodies.

The uncertainty and possible locations the plane could have flown to provide fertile ground for conspiracy theorists. The theory that the plane could have landed has also given relatives of passengers and crew renewed hope.

16.31 The search area for Flight MH370 is now up to 30 million square miles, according to several estimates. The leader of one of the Malaysia search missions, Captain Fareq Hassan, said:

This is not just a needle in a haystack, it’s a haystack that gets bigger and shifts under us due to the (ocean’s) drift.

16.10 MH370 is not the only plane to go missing without a trace. Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 disappeared between New york City and seattle in 1950:

Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 disappeared on June 24, 1950

15.22 Reports that the Chinese government issued strict guideleines to media not to analyse missing flight MH370 or do any independent reporting. China Digital Times has published the apparent message:

The media may not independently analyse or comment on the lost Malaysia Airlines flight. Related coverage must strictly accord with authoritative information issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China and with Xinhua News Agency wire copy. The domestic aviation department can promptly provide related information to passengers’ family members. All media must refrain from interviewing family members without permission, and must not incite any discontented sentiment.

Prayers in Kuala Lumpur

15.15 The Hindu's Beijing correspondent speculates that China may be changing its critical atittude towards Kulala Lumpur over its handling of the crisis:

14.50 Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban in Afghanistan, who are seeking to oust foreign troops and set up an Islamic state, said the missing plane had nothing to do with them.

"It happened outside Afghanistan and you can see that even countries with very advanced equipment and facilities cannot figure out where it went," he said. "So we also do not have any information as it is an external issue."

A commander with the Pakistani Taliban, a separate entity fighting the Pakistani government, said the fragmented group could only dream about such an operation.

"We wish we had an opportunity to hijack such a plane," he told Reuters by telephone from the lawless North Waziristan region.

The pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 while attempting to circumnavigate the globe. Various reasons have been given for her disappearance. Some claim she was a spy, and that she was shot down and captured by Japanese forces; some believe she faked her own death; and a few even claim she was abducted by aliens. Last year researchers claimed they had discovered remnants of her aircraft using sonar readings.

14.29 The father of flight engineer and MH370 passenger, Mohd Khairul Amri Selamat, who is being investigated along with the other passengers and crew holds up a picture of his son:

14.12 It would have been "extremely difficult" to fly Flight MH370 at 5,000 feet if it reached the mountainous areas in the Himalayan vicinity, over northern India, Pakistan, or elsewhere in that region, a 777 flight simulator operator tells CNN.

"It would be extremely treacherous, very difficult to control, especially hard to do at night," said Mitchell Casado, operator of a flight simulator in Mississauga, Ontario.

At that height it would have seemed as though the jet was almost flying into the tree tops or mountain side and would have sounded extremely loud on the ground and disconcerting for passengers aboard.

Mr Casado's assessment adds to the puzzling notion that the Malaysia Airlines flight could have continued for hours at low altitude without anyone in the air or on the ground raising the alarm.

14.02 Malaysian authorities confirm that it was the co-pilot who was the last to speak to the ground before the flight vanished between Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace and confirm they are widening the search.

13.28 A leader of the Malaysian opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat, of which the captain of MH370 was a strong supporter, has said that members of his political alliance were willing to change places with all 239 passengers and crew if it emerged the plane had been hijacked.

Mahfuz Omar, MP, said:

Our concern now is the safety of the passengers. I am willing to exchange places with the passengers and become a hostage if the need arises.

13.09 The Malay Mailreports that three French investigators involved in the Air France 447 disaster have arrived in Malaysia to help authorities with missing flight MH370. Air France 447 was lost five years ago in the Atlantic Ocean as it flew from Rio to France. The Malaysian transport ministry said in a statement:

The officials will share their expertise and knowledge based on their experience from the search for Air France Flight 447.

Cambodian residents light candles as they pray for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 at their village in Phnom Penh

12.42 Now this is possibly my favourite theory so far.

Did MH 370 switch off its radar, then "shadow" another plane - flying from Singapore to Barcelona - and land north of India or in Afghanistan?

It became apparent as I inspected SIA68’s flight path history that MH370 had maneuvered itself directly behind SIA68 at approximately 17:00UTC and over the next 15 minutes had been following SIA68. All the pieces of my theory had been fitting together with the facts that have been publically released and I began to feel a little uneasy.

12.40 Further detail from Kazakhstan's assertion (see 12.28) that there were no unidentified planes detected over its airspace.

ALMATY, March 17 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan said on Monday it had not detected any "unsanctioned use" of its air space by any planes on March 8, making it unlikely that a missing Malaysia Arlines jetliner could have been diverted along a northern route via Thailand.

Malaysia Airlines MASM.KL Flight MH370, which vanished with 239 people aboard, could hypothetically have reached the Central Asian nation's air space, but it would have been detected there, the Kazakh Civil Aviation Committee said in a detailed statement sent to Reuters.

Malaysia Airlines planes had made nine regular flights to and from Europe over Kazakhstan's territory on March 8, it said.

The government added to the confusion about what happened during those key minutes by withdrawing its assertion that the radio signoff came after a crucial communications system was disabled.

The new description of what happened to the Acars system appeared to reopen the possibility that the aircraft was operating normally until the transponder ceased sending signals two minutes after the last radio message. The new uncertainty could also raise additional questions about whether the plane was deliberately diverted or whether it suffered mechanical or electrical difficulties that crippled its communications and resulted in its flying an aberrant course.

12.28 Breaking news from Kazakhstan - effectively ruling the country out from the search?

KAZAKHSTAN DID NOT DETECT "UNSANCTIONED USE" OF ITS AIR SPACE ON MARCH 8 - KAZAKH CIVIL AVIATION COMMITTEE COMMENTS ON DISAPPEARED MALAYSIA AIRLINES PLANE

NINE MALAYSIA AIRLINES PLANES MADE REGULAR FLIGHTS TO AND FROM E NINE MALAYSIA AIRLINES PLANES MADE REGULAR FLIGHTS TO AND FROM EUROPE OVER KAZAKHSTAN ON MARCH 8 - KAZAKH CIVIL AVIATION COMMITTEE

The Times of India said security sources had “rubbished” the idea that the plane could have got anywhere close to an urban centre and insisted it would have been detected by a naval base on the Andaman islands, more than 600 miles off the Indian mainland.

12.17 Malaysia Airlines has decided to rename Flight MH 370 as Flight MH 318, as a mark of respect.

The route, from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, remains unchanged.

Reuters photographer Edgar Su boarded the flight in Kuala Lumpur on March 17 and documented the journey to Beijing.

But this article in Slate magazine is well worth reading, to give a bit of perspective.

William Dobson, Slate's politics and foreign affairs editor writes:

There is an axiom in Malaysian politics: Eventually everything comes back to Anwar Ibrahim. So, the longer that the fumbling and inept investigation into the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has gone on, the more certain it became that it would somehow boomerang to the leader of the country’s democratic opposition.

11.55 Our correspondent in Kuala Lumpur, Jonathan Pearlman, has sent the following update from Malaysia.

Malaysia Airlines revealed the plane’s co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, was the last person to communicate to the ground from the cockpit, apparently after the communications system was shut off. So far, nothing suspicious about his background – he was 27 and apparently planning to marry his pilot girlfriend. Trying to find out more on him tonight.

Meanwhile, Malaysia has “narrowed” the search to two enormous corridors – a northern one spreading from Myanmar to Uzbekistan, and a southern one spreading across Australia and Indonesia. Malaysian authorities say no terrorists have claimed responsibility and reports that the plane flew low now appear to be wrong.

After numerous theories of a possible sea crash, hijack and pilot suicide, Malaysian authorities are seeking diplomatic permission to scrutinize Taliban-controlled bases on the borders of Afghanistan and North West Pakistan, the Independent reports.

• Was the plane 'cyber hijacked', using a mobile phone?

A mobile phone or a USB stick could have been used by a hacker to potentially change the plane's altitude, speed and direction by sending radio signals to its flight management system.

Was it possible for hackers to get into main computer network of the plane through the in-flight, on-board entertainment system? Whoever was responsible for the plane's disappearance likely has a 'very sophisticated systems engineering understanding'.

Capt Shah's wife and three children moved out of the family home the day before the plane disappeared.

Captain Zaharie Ahmed Shah, pilot of Flight MH 370

11.31 AFP news agency have added more detail to this morning's new development - that the co pilot spoke the final known words from the cockpit.

KUALA LUMPUR, March 17, 2014 (AFP) - The last words spoken from the cockpit of the Malaysian passenger jet that went missing 10 days ago were believed to have been spoken by the co-pilot, the airline's top executive said Monday.

The last message from the cockpit - "All right, good night" - came around the time that two of the missing plane's crucial signalling systems were switched off.

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and his first officer Fariq Abdul Hamid have become a primary focus of the investigation into the fate of Flight 370, with one of the key questions being who was controlling the aircraft when the communications systems were disabled.

The last signal from the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was received 12 minutes before the co-pilot's seemingly nonchalant final words.

ACARS transmits key information on a plane's condition to the ground.

The plane's transponder - which relays radar information on the plane's location - was switched off just two minutes after the voice message.

The northern corridor includes mountainous terrain that reaches up to around 20,000 feet (6,096 meters), and crosses the borders of countries such as China and Kazakhstan. The southern corridor, apart from a small corner of Indonesia, traverses nothing but ocean. It includes an ocean trench that is deeper than the Tibetan Plateau on the northerly corridor is tall.

Both areas will present considerably difficulties to search parties looking for Flight 370.

11.02 Authorities in Malaysia now seem convinced that flight MH 370 was hijacked. By who, we don't yet know - although evidence suggests that someone with a good understanding of flight controls and radar systems was in charge.

On one level, it's comforting to think that a hijacker of MH370 was not bent on using the plane as a weapon of mass destruction, but rather wanted to start life anew somewhere else. But it's also frightening to imagine a world where, as in the early 1970s, the desperate and deluded increasingly start to view hijacking as a reasonable solution to their problems.

10.46 The Reuters news agency have produced this timeline of what we know so far.

- 0041: Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 departs from Kuala Lumpur International Airport and is due to land in Beijing at 0630 the same day. On board the Boeing 777-200ER are 227 passengers and 12 crew.

- 0107: After take-off and ascent, the plane sends its last ACARS transmission, which gives engine maintenance data to the ground. The system is later deactivated.

- 0119: Someone in the cockpit says "All right, good night" to Malaysian air traffic control. They were the last words heard from Flight MH370.

- 0121: The plane drops off air traffic control screens as its transponder - which responds to civilian radar - is switched off. The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam says the plane failed to check in as scheduled at 0121 with air traffic control in Ho Chi Minh City. Malaysian authorities believe that someone on board shut off the plane's communications systems and turned it sharply to the west.

- 0215: Malaysian military radar plots Flight MH370 at a point south of Phuket island in the Strait of Malacca, hundreds of miles west of its last known location.

- 0811: The last signal received from the plane, according to satellite tracking data. The final communication placed the plane somewhere in one of two corridors: a northern arc stretching from northern Thailand to Kazakhstan, or a southern one stretching from Indonesia to the vast southern Indian Ocean.

At a daily press briefing, Malaysia Airlines head Ahmad Jauhari Yahya revealed that Fariq Abdul Hamid, the co-pilot of the missing MH370 flight, was the last person to communicate to the ground from the cockpit. This was apparently several minutes after the communications system was shut off.

However, Malaysian authorities have so far found nothing suspicious about the backgrounds of the pilot or co-pilot, a 27-year-old flying enthusiast who was reportedly planning to marry his long-time girlfriend, a fellow pilot.

Hishammuddin Hussein, the acting transport minister, confirmed that no terrorist groups have claimed responsibility for the plane’s disappearance.

“The fact there are no distress signals, there are no ransom notes, there are no parties claiming responsibility – there is still hope.”

10.25 As confirmed by Malaysian authorities this morning, Australia is leading the search of the southern corridor.

Here's what Tony Abbott, Australia's prime minister, said about the search:

- The co pilot spoke the last words to Air Traffic Control; "All right, good night." When asked if the voice recording was being analysed for stress, the authorities said that was part of the investigation and they couldn't comment.

- The last ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) transmittion from the plane was at 1.07am

- 26 countries are now involved in the search, which spans the border of 11 countries.

- The search has been divided into two corridors, a northern and southern one. The northern one runs from Laos to the Caspian Sea; the southern one from Sumatra into the Indian Ocean.

- Authorities defended their handling of the crisis.

- Malaysia says it is unaware of reports that the plane flew at 5,000ft to avoid radar detection.

10.12 The press conference has just finished.

10.11 Hishammuddin Hussein is saying:

We have to be very responsible with the statements we make, and think about the suffering of the families.

10.06 The authorities are being asked whether the plane was flying at 5,000ft.

09.48 Hishammuddin Hussein, the Malaysian transport minister, is being asked about the security checks performed on the pilot before he was permitted to fly.

He says they were standard, but are currently being reviewed.

Going forward, we will obviously look into this, and see if we can strengthen or tighten the requirements.

We are now on "Code Tango", which means a heightened security environment. Extra precautions are currently being taken.

09.45 Interesting to note that French investigators have been invited to assist the search.

Remember they spent two years searching for the wreckage of the Air France plane which crashed over the Atlantic in June 2009.

Our Washington correspondent, Raf Sanchez, has had a look at how the Malaysia Airlines disappearance compares to other tragedies.

In the search for Air France 447, an Airbus 330 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, the first signs of wreckage were found a day after the crash.

The Air France Airbus also sent automated warning messages to its manufacturer as it began to go out of control in 2009. Boeing does not appear to have received any similar messages from its 777, leaving no clues of its fate.